What this is
The cut of the framework I actually use on retail, customer service, and manufacturing engagements, the public-facing version of the methodology that runs through every case study on this site. It’s a blend of action mapping, ADDIE’s discipline, and the habits I’ve built running small L&D functions where one person owns the whole loop.
What’s inside
- Discover, the sponsor questions I won’t start without, plus the SME action-mapping script I walk into every kickoff with.
- Design, the modality decision tree (Rise / Storyline / code / blended / job aid), plus scenario and assessment starter structures.
- Build, the pre-build / build / polish cadence, including what AI can scaffold and what it absolutely cannot.
- Deliver, launch comms templates, manager one-pagers, pilot readout format.
- Measure, a Kirkpatrick L1–L4 planning canvas mapped to xAPI statements, with the heuristic for when L3/L4 is actually attributable.
What “Measure” actually buys a sponsor
This is the phase most frameworks wave at and most programs skip. It’s also where AI and xAPI change what’s possible, so it’s worth being concrete.
Build the learning experience to emit xAPI, the data standard behind a Learning Record Store, and every meaningful action becomes a record: the decision made in a scenario, the approach taken in a roleplay, the answer chosen, the time spent hesitating. That turns evaluation from a survey you send later into a signal you watch live:
- You see behavior (L3), not just completion, how someone handled the moment, not merely that they clicked through it.
- A manager gets a dashboard that flags who’s struggling with which skill while there’s still time to coach, instead of a post-quarter report.
- Because AI can read the open-text answers and the decision paths, it can hand a leader a follow-up plan and even draft the coaching nudges, analysis that used to take an analyst, now in the time it takes to read it.
The Practice Room and manager dashboard demos show this end of the framework working end to end.
How to use it
Print the PDF. Take it into a kickoff. Cross out the parts that don’t apply to your project and write in the ones that do. The framework isn’t precious, the point is to make every phase a conscious choice, especially the evaluation one.
Who it’s for
Two audiences, on purpose. Senior IDs and L&D leaders get a repeatable way to defend design decisions to sponsors, SMEs, and their own future selves. Managers and sponsors get a map of what to expect at each gate, and the questions to ask so the program comes back with proof of behavior change, not just a completion percentage.